Sue Woodd is absolutely right to highlight the absurd design of the ‘temporary’ traffic changes at the junction of Clifton Terrace and Romsey Road (‘It’s terrifying’, Chronicle letters, October 17).

Just after I’d read her letter, I watched a cyclist come along Clifton Terrace wanting to cross to St James Terrace, which is supposedly what the arrangement is meant to encourage. The great rubber barrier swept her round to the right, alongside a car which didn’t leave her much room. Meanwhile the generously laid-out cycle lane coming down the hill and sweeping left into Clifton Terrace remained, as it invariably does, empty.

Then the young cyclist crossed the road between the cars that had been stopped by the lights then, unlike Sue Woodd, instead of swinging left to use the dropped kerb, simply hopped up onto the pavement opposite. Just what I was told not to do in my cycling proficiency lessons long ago, as it was bad for the wheels.

If the cyclist had instead wanted to turn down Romsey Road, the photo here shows what she would have encountered. I took the photo as a mere pedestrian, pressed tight against the wall.

Hampshire County Council, with this £500.000 scheme, is solving the wrong problem. It was never dangerous to turn left into Romsey Road, unlike the blind junction residents have to use now from Clifton Road into St Paul’s Hill. The bridge over Romsey Road is simply too narrow for two lanes of traffic - especially when barely 1 in 10 drivers keeps to the 20mph limit there.

Judith Martin,

Romsey Road
Winchester